


Many Years Ago Today

by Sophia256



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coming Out, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:01:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27641090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia256/pseuds/Sophia256
Summary: It's the anniversary of the day that the Captain received news that devastated him; Kitty is there for him and he slowly lets himself open up.
Relationships: The Captain & Kitty (Ghosts TV 2019), The Captain/Lieutenant Havers (Ghosts TV 2019)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 78





	Many Years Ago Today

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is my first Ghosts fanfic! To be honest, I borrowed the idea of Captain coming out to Kitty from a different fic on here (You Ain't Never Had A Friend Like Me, go check it out!), but I wanted to write a coming-out fic for him and this seemed more realistic for him than announcing it to the whole group at once.

Most times, the Captain was able to keep a neutral exterior, even when painful memories from long ago crawled their way out of the back corners of his mind to where he had pushed them. He had a secret that he would never, no, could never tell another soul, and especially being a military man, he must keep his composure and not act out of the ordinary.  
But tonight was not one of those times.  
At this particular moment, he was sitting on the windowsill in the living room, and gazing out onto the drive, which was lit by moonlight. The very same drive that he had seen Lieutenant Havers walk down all those years ago when he left to join the North Africa front.   
A month or so ago, Mike and Alison’s work in the garden had caused the old limpet mine from Operation William to go off. The Captain remembered the letter that he had buried along with the mine, the letter that he had been too scared to give to Havers that day in his office. He had hoped that one day Havers might return to Button House, so that the Captain might finally fix his mistake and finally tell Havers, tell William everything that he felt for him.  
But he had never gotten his chance. Five months after Havers left, the Captain had received a telegram. Three words in the telegram replayed over and over in the Captain’s mind ever since: Killed In Action.  
And today was the anniversary of when he had heard it. To be truthful, this day of the year haunted the Captain even more than his own death day did. He hated the fact that he had been such a coward, and now he had no choice but to exist here for eternity with the knowledge that Havers will never know how he felt, and never knowing if Havers had possibly held any of the same feelings in return.  
This train of thought was interrupted when a high voice spoke up from the doorway.  
“Captain? Are you okay?”  
The Captain whipped his head up and saw Kitty standing there. He cleared his throat and straightened his back, and suddenly became aware of the tears that had slightly begun to form in his eyes, which he hoped she did not notice. He didn’t expect any of the other ghosts to still be awake and about at this hour. If it were anyone but Kitty, he would have sharply told them off for not simply leaving him alone, but she was too sweet for that.  
“I’m fine, Kitty,” he replied. “It’s nothing that you need to be concerned with.”  
“But Captain,” insisted Kitty, “you look sad! And I don’t like it when people are sad. It makes me sad too.” The Captain considered protesting further, but he saw how concerned Kitty looked, and he knew that she tended to be stubborn at times and likely wouldn’t just go away.   
“Okay, then,” he conceded after a moment, “would you like to come sit next to me?”  
“Yes, I would!” Kitty’s dress swished as she crossed the room, and she sat down next to the Captain.   
“Now, do you want to tell me what you’re sad about?”  
His first thought that crept up was that he did want to, he wanted to be able to share what he was thinking and feeling with someone else. But in this case, that would require revealing the truth: that he was a homosexual, in love with another man, who had been taken from him by a bullet on some godforsaken battlefield in Egypt before he told him that he loved him. And the thought of saying any of that absolutely terrified the Captain. So he chose his words carefully, wanting to give Kitty an answer but also to still shield that part of him.  
“Well, Kitty, I… I’m sad because I lost a friend. Many years ago today.”  
“Oh no! That’s terrible! Alison’s my friend, and I would be devastated if anything happened to her! Well, unless she became a ghost here, of course, because then we could be best friends forever and ever and-” Kitty noticed the look that crossed the Captain’s face, and realized that she wasn’t actually helping. She made her face more solemn again. “So, what was your friend’s name?”  
He gave her a weak smile. “His name was Lieutenant Havers.”  
Kitty scrunched up her face in thought for a moment, then gasped. “Havers! Yes, I remember him! He was the tall one with the handsome eyes, right?”  
The Captain’s eyes widened, and he cleared his throat again. “Well, I, er, certainly wouldn’t know if his eyes were handsome or not, Kitty. I, um…”  
“Well, I think they were,” she replied. “And Lady Button said that he was one of her favorite soldiers too, because he was one of the only ones with a bunch of proper manners and stuff.”  
The Captain was reminded from time to time, such as right now, that the older ghosts of the house had had the ability to watch whatever he and his men were doing while he was alive, without him having any clue, which could definitely be a bit of an unsettling thought. He hoped they had not been privy to some of his more embarrassing moments, like what his reaction had been on this day all those years ago; it would be a wonder that the ghosts ever respected him as their CO if they had witnessed him sobbing in his office.  
“I’m sorry that you’re so sad about him, Captain,” said Kitty, again pulling the Captain out of his thoughts.  
“Ah, yes, thank you, Kitty,” he replied, not quite meeting her gaze. They sat in silence for another minute or two.  
“I wrote him a letter.” The Captain said, and as soon as it was out of his mouth he could hardly believe he had said that out loud instead of merely thinking it.  
“You did? What sort of letter?”  
“It was right before he left for the front. I never did give it to him, you see, so I buried it, with that bomb. Remember a while back, how I told everyone it was blueprints in that envelope? Well, it wasn’t, not really.”  
Kitty tilted her head to the side. “That’s a rather odd thing to do with a letter. What did it say?”  
The Captain wanted to avoid answering that question, but he could see that he had virtually no chance to turn back at this point in the conversation; he had already gone and let the cat out of the bag about writing the balley letter in the first place. Swearing her to secrecy would have to suffice.  
“Kitty, if I tell you, you must promise not to tell anyone else, ever, do you understand?”   
Kitty nodded with a worried expression. “Yes, Captain.”  
The Captain swallowed, then spoke. “I… In the letter, I told him how much I cared about him. I told him that… that I loved him.” His last few words were a barely audible whisper. “But I never told him, I was too scared, too much of a bloody coward. And then he left, and I never saw him again, and I received the news from North Africa that- that he…” He buried his face in his hands, unable to finish his sentence, or to hold back any longer the tears that were streaming down his cheeks now that the wall in front of his emotions had been broken down.   
“Oh, Captain, that’s so sad!” Kitty was not prepared for what to do for the uncharacteristically crying Captain seated next to her, and held out her hand awkwardly as she was unsure if she should give him a pat on the shoulder.  
“You see, Kitty? No one can ever know. It’s quite illegal, I can only imagine what the consequences would be if the word got out that I’m one of 'those'. None of the others would speak to me again, for starters, I imagine-”  
“But Captain, it’s alright!” she said. The Captain looked up at her in surprise. “I know that sometimes men fancy other men. Like Lady Button’s husband, for one. Except he was also mean because he killed her. Oh, and there was this one time where the Highams threw a big party, and I saw two men kissing in the gardens!” She grinned.  
“You what?” Acceptance this nonchalant for men like him was, in truth, about the furthest thing from what the Captain was expecting.  
“Yes! They looked so in love with each other!” She paused for a moment, thinking. “Now that I remember it, you looked like you were in love too, with Lieutenant Havers.”  
“What?” The color drained from his face for a moment; had it really been that obvious for anyone to observe during his lifetime?  
“Don’t get all worried, I don’t think anyone else in the house noticed it, not even the other ghosts. But I just love love. Don’t you?”  
The Captain managed a small smile. “Yes, Kitty, I suppose I do.” They continued to sit silently, but it was a more contented silence this time. If opening up to Kitty had gone this well, he started to have hope that he could someday tell the other ghosts as well. Someday.  
In his mind’s eye, he saw Havers, who was smiling at him. He imagined a world where they could have been together, at peace.


End file.
